WASHINGTON –Joseph P. Nacchio, 57, the former chief executive officer of Qwest
Communications International Inc., was sentenced to 6 years in prison for
insider trading, the Justice Department announced today.

Chief U.S. District Judge Edward Nottingham for the District of Colorado also
ordered Nacchio to forfeit $52 million, pay a $19 million fine and serve two years of supervised
release.

On April 19, 2007, a federal jury convicted Nacchio of 19 counts of insider
trading, covering $52 million in stock sales. The conviction came after 15
days at trial and six days of deliberation.

“Today’s prison sentence of 72 months holds Mr. Nacchio accountable for lining
his pockets at the expense of investors,” said Assistant Attorney General Alice
S. Fisher. “The Justice Department will continue to pursue corporate fraud
cases to ensure the integrity and transparency of our financial marketplace.”

“In an age of cynicism, justice can still prevail and even inspire,” said U.S.
Attorney Troy A. Eid of the District of Colorado. “This is one of those
moments.”

Nacchio served as Qwest’s chief executive officer and was a member of the
company’s board of directors from about January 1997 through June 2002.
According to the indictment, Nacchio sold Qwest stock from January to September
2001 when he knew, but did not disclose publicly, that Qwest was unlikely to
continue to meet its publicly announced earnings targets as that year
progressed. Federal law prohibits corporate insiders, such as officers or
directors, from trading on material information regarding the company’s stock
that has not been publicly disclosed. In particular, the indictment states
that Nacchio knew that Qwest’s 2001 financial targets were overly aggressive,
that Qwest did not have a good track record in growing recurring revenue, that
the company’s business units were underperforming, and that there would be
insufficient non-recurring revenue sources to close the gap between Qwest’s
publicly stated financial targets and its actual performance. It further
states that Nacchio was specifically warned about this information.

The Nacchio investigation was conducted by the FBI and the U.S. Postal
Inspection Service. The case was prosecuted by First Assistant U.S. Attorney
Cliff Stricklin and Assistant U.S. Attorneys James Hearty and Kevin Traskos of
the District of Colorado, and Senior Litigation Counsel Colleen Conry and Trial
Attorney Leo Wise from the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section at the U.S.
Department of Justice in Washington, D.C.